2015 schedule

They have been released by pressing. Poor guy with the schedules. He had no idea he would be crushed with rocks until they oozed out of him.

Wisconsin: remember them?

2015

Oct. 3: at Michigan State

Oct. 10: Wisconsin

Oct. 17: Minnesota

Oct. 24: at Illinois

Oct. 31: Bye

Nov. 7: Nebraska

Nov. 14: at Northwestern

Nov. 21: at Iowa

Nov. 28: Ohio State

Dec. 5: Big Ten Championship Game

2016

Oct. 1: Michigan State

Oct. 8: at Minnesota

Oct. 15: Northwestern

Oct. 22: Bye

Oct. 29: at Wisconsin

Nov. 5: Illinois

Nov. 12: at Nebraska

Nov. 19: Iowa

Nov. 26: at Ohio State

Dec. 3: Big Ten Championship Game

How about some bullets?

Again with the brutal home-road attractiveness swings. By lining up Wisconsin with Nebraska and Ohio State the Big Ten has turned the 2016 home slate into a 2012-like dog. It's far enough in the future that maybe Illinois could be good or something, but that is three teams that traditionally hover around .500—if they're lucky, in Illinois's case—and Iowa. Iowa may be going through a painful transition period around then if Ferentz decides to hang 'em up or is in the senescence phase of his career (he'll be 62 when the 2012 season starts).

So, like, bleah. Meanwhile: enjoy storming the @ ND, @ Wisconsin, @ Nebraska, @ OSU castle. Hopefully we have an Andre the Giant by then.

Woo Northwestern night game? Putting MSU and a bye in October severely limits options for a night game in 2016. IIRC, Big Ten teams can't play at night in November—or at least the road team has to agree to it—and Dave Brandon has said he won't let the juggalos burn down Ann Arbor. ND will also be on the road, so unless Michigan lines up an attractive nonconference home game get ready for an 8 PM start against the Wildcats. This may be the main reason Brandon is trying to lock down a Pac-12 home and home before the scheduling agreement kicks in.

2015 will obviously be Wisconsin.

Nicely situated byes at least. Two weeks to prep for important games both years and a break right in the middle of the conference season.

Of course we never see Indiana. Not that I'm making big wavy complaints about that. But after years of accidentally getting tougher than average schedules because of poorly-timed byes, the institutional bias towards tough Michigan schedules really hits home when you think about this: MSU plays Indiana 100% of the time and OSU 40% of the time. Michigan plays Indiana 40% of the time and OSU 100% of the time.